Why don't they make a garden hose puncture repair kit?

[Dean Hoffman]

Apparently, "they" aren't making one due to lack of demand and lack of profit potential. Why don't you make one? You'll have what you want then.

[Oscar Mayer]

The main reason for taking off the tire is a visual inspection of the carcass and once the tire is off, you may as well patch it from inside.

Normally what I do is remove the tire at home, inspect the inside and plug it from the outside and then cut the plug flush & patch from the inside.

Then I remount the tire & static balance it & take it for a road test.

I've plugged many tires as has everyone on this newsgroup plugged them. I've never had a plugged tire fail on me in use. Have you?

That doesn't mean though that the carcass wasn't damaged internally. But in a true emergency I'd plug a tire in a heartbeat to get going.

The harder problem is putting the air back into that plugged tire.

I think eventually most plugs would leak if they're not reamed out well. That's because the squirming of the steel bands would push it out. But that seems to take years at the kind of normal driving most of us do.

There is only one right way but there are a lot of wrong ways to do it.

Two $35 plugs is the cost of an entire economy car brand new tire.

What I do when I dunk a tire to check is throw it in the kiddie pool. Or if it's on the car (or super dirty) I just spray it with dish soap.

There's a problem there in that a proper repair has to have the tire removed to inspect the inside of the carcass so a rebalance is normally done although at home you could just mark the position ahead of time.

Balancing is one of those things that everyone has an opinion on. I have the Harbor Freight aluminum static balancer which works fine.

The only problem is Harbor Freight only sells stickon weights. I like the crimpon type. So I have to buy huge boxes off of Amazon.

I've watched the Hunter tech many times. They're usually very lazy. They never do it right.

They know how to match mount but they're too lazy to do it right. They know how to mount by the yellow/read/white marks too.

But all they care about it getting the next customer out the door. That's how they're paid.

You can do the whole thing at home for an outlay of about $250 depending on whether you already have the tools that you need. I do it all the time.

1. air compressor, chucks, hoses, stem removal tool, tire irons, soap, etc.
2. bead breaker tool
3. tire mounting/dismounting tool <== don't use their lousy bead breaker
4. static balancer

Harbor Freight sells everything except the dish soap. Anyone claiming you always need road-force balancing is making that up.

The after-the-fact dynamic balance test is free in all cases.

[Andrew]

Cindy Hamilton wrote on Sat, 02 Dec 2023 17:41:32 GMT :

I would agree with you that the adage is wrong in almost every way that it's used, as you used it to tell me that I shouldn't even try to find a good quality hose for a better price than my local Home Depot sells it.

That might be true if the quality:price metric is inelastic. Elasticity is a fundamental component of a typical supply & demand curve.

If the supply and demand curve for garden hoses is inelastic, you would be correct (probably) that the best price I can find is the only price I have.

But I'm assuming that the supply and demand curve for garden hoses is more elastic than you are assuming, which likely means others out who know a lot more than I do will have found a better price for the same quality hose.

What it means is we made different assumptions on the S:D curve elasticity.

[Andrew]

Cindy Hamilton wrote on Sat, 02 Dec 2023 17:42:40 GMT :

I already showed pictures of my high-quality rubber hoses with nickel plated machined brass fittings so I'm obviously willing to pay for quality.

I just want the best price for that best quality. Almost every comment I've made in this thread was about quality.

Knowing that, it's not helpful to someone like me who is looking for high quality products at the best price to claim that price is the only quality metric.

Price matters. A lot. But it's the last metric because if the quality of the hose or the fittings stinks, then it's still worthless at any price.

[Andrew]

micky wrote on Sat, 02 Dec 2023 13:37:53 -0500 :

It's important to note that the price is a very important component of any exchange and has been for tens of thousands of years - simply because the seller won't part with that item unless compensated - but - the quality of what you're buying is also just as important - and - in fact - quality is the first thing you seek because poor quality isn't worth it at any price.

How's that?

[david]

Why would a burst pressure over ~200 psi matter for a typical garden hose?

[hubops]

I've heard that some people just use an old toothpaste tube. ;-) John T.

[Ken Blake]

What grade are you in?

[hubops]

It probably isn't much of a real-life concern - the $ 100. stainless steel garden hose sure brags on their 500 psi .. .. then they don't have much of a warranty - go figure. John T.

[Bob F]

Not at all if the flow at the end is ever shut off by a hose nozzle.

[Bob F]

Another issue.

Hose reels. If you have a good one, and use it regularly to store the hose, and use care not to kink the hose, which is much easier with a good reel, the hose will last way longer. It will suffer way less damage and heat from the sun. The UV will not break down the "skin" of the hose. I even have a scrap of floor laminate that curves nicely around the reeled hose that I leave on it when not in use to keep the sun off the outer layer of the hose on the reel. The 2 3/4" hoses on that reel look like new, even though they are at least 2 decades old.

One of the tricks for using the hose reel is started the reeling process by picking up the hose 6 feet from the end (or so) and then walking towards the reel pick up another section a dozen feet closer to the reel, over and over till you can set the lengths of hose with the center of the loops you are dragging on the ground at 90 degrees to the hose reel. Generally, winding the reel will collect the hose without kinks or excessive force needed.

[micky]

I don't know yet.

But I still have one of the two large outdoor pastic garbage cans with the bendable plastic that I bought 40 years ago when I moved in.

A lof them wear out because people drag them to the street and scrape their bottoms off.

I think those come in more than one kind of plastic. More experience with wastebaskets. One brown bendable (vinyl?)..I got it second hand, don't know how old and it lasted 10 or 20 years before it ripped. Another white and much stiffer material, almost plastic, also second hand and it was fine for 10 years and all of sudden got brittle. It was filled with my stuff, not trash, and fairly heavy, and big pieces started breaking off until it was only 1/3 as tall as it had been.

[micky]

Yes, I said how old my hoses were, mentioned that they were on the north side of the hosue, but forgot to mention that I have a hose reel. (Also

40 years old, aluminum, but it still has leaks.) Hose reels good. Buttermilk bad.

[Clare Snyder]

The OLD rubbermade garbage cans lated and lasted - even stood up to the abuse of contract garbage droids. Don't know of any new ones that last. \ Cheap garden hoses don't klast - and even GOOD ones don't stand up to the abuse of being left laying out on the lawn in the sun all year (Like Micky says he does) There are good ones but they are NOT CHEAP!!!!! The ones with braided cord hose with a woven cover (some even stainless steel) stand up very well

[micky]

Yes, Rubbermaid made the ones that lasted me 40 years. I bought two and found two that were abandoned, but one of them did break. Someone slammed it down on its bottom enough that it had 6 or 8 vertical slices near the bottom going up about a foot. I would still have used it, just not for liquids, but the garbage men must have decided it was time to get rid of it.

About a month ago the county gave us big ones on wheels, maybe 50% or more bigger than the Rubbermaid one. So far, so good, but what to do with the old ones?

No, no, I don't leave the garden hose out all year. Maybe some of it a couple weeks. A couple summers I didn't even unroll the hose. (Where I grew up, western Pa. and indianpolis suburbs with 1/3 acre lots, no one watered their lawn, so I don't either.)

Maybe you're thinking of the electric cord. That I left out in the yard for 20 or 25 years. Had to take it in this summer because I paid someone to mow the lawn. (Actually a few years ago my next door n'bor mowed my lawn as a favor without telling me. He cut the cord in half but didn't notice he'd done that. Fortunately, by then it was already in two pieces so I wasn't stuck like Andrew trying to figure out how to patch it without cutting it.)

[Cindy Hamilton]

We have two trash cans in the garage (his and hers), lined with contractor bags. (Being neither cheap nor lazy, we don't like to put loose trash in the carts provided by the trash hauler.) Two trash cans in the workshop. Another trash can holds scrap lumber in the workshop until it's ready for disposal. I think there's another one that we use on an ad hoc basis during projects.

[micky]

That's so sweet.

I just hate to wasted all that "plastic" in the big thick plastic bags.

I wish I had a garage.

[Cindy Hamilton]

We often put fairly sharp things in those cans. I'd rather not have them tear through.

Priorities. A garage was a must when we were shopping for a house. A few years later, we decided that keeping the big power tools in the garage and moving the cars out every time we wanted to use them wasn't workable, so we built a 20x40' shop.

We don't live inside the city limits; the property taxes there are too high. I drive a 20-year-old SUV; he drives a 15-year-old SUV. We rarely traveled for vacations; we'd rather use the time and money for infrastructure improvements.

Of course, double-income, no kids helped a lot. Now we're enjoying a comfortable retirement, debating when we'll start drawing from our big, fat 401K's.

[hubops]

I save the water softener salt bags for rough trash. John T.

[Ralph Mowery]

If any was possiable the reverse morgage (which I believe ,right or wrong) is just a fancy morgage on your home.

The annuity is another big rip off on many people. That is why they advertise them so much.

Just about anything advertised on TV I try to advoid.